“The Way Home” Series Finale Ending Explained, from the Engagement to Those Reunions and That Very Last Jump

Showrunners Alexandra Clarke and Heather Conkie break down all the details

NEED TO KNOW

• The Way Home creators reveal the finale’s emotional significance and the importance of Kat and Alice’s final leap
• The series finale emphasized closure for key characters and celebrated the unity of feuding families across generations
• Cast and crew cherished keepsakes from the set, reflecting the show’s deep impact on their lives and its fans

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the series finale of The Way Home.

The Way Home wrapped its fourth and final season with several splashes, from viewers' tears landing on their shirts to Kat and Alice's last leap into the pond.

The last episode of the hit Hallmark Channel series picked up where the penultimate had left off, with Elliot (Evan Williams) shot by his mother (Megan Follows) in 1925. Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow), Jacob (Spencer MacPherson) and Kat (Chyler Leigh) helped him into the pond to head home to the safety of modern medicine — only the pond wouldn't send Kat back with him.

Soon, we learn that Fern's (Bianca Melchior) love, Cliff (Dan Jeannotte), was among the casualties in the tunnels at Lingermore, and that Fern was pregnant with his child. Later, Fern jumped into the pond for a final moment with Cliff mere hours before his death and shared the news with him.

Back in the present day, Elliot pulled through, and Jacob jumped in the pond to try to bring Kat home, but it sent him to Elijah's last day instead, where Elijah (Stuart Hughes) told him the Landry farm "is all still here because of you." When Jacob returned to the present day, he made up with Abby Goodwin (Holly Deveaux) and convinced her to stay in Port Haven with him.

After a tearful goodbye with Fern, Kat finally made her way to the present day. After reuniting with Elliot, she dove headfirst into writing her book. Later, Elliot finally proposed, and Alice played her song, "Already Home."

Alice took another jump and visited Evelyn in her final days, and Evie (Devin Cecchetto) shared that she felt completely iced out when she put together the pieces and realized her friends were time-travelers. The pair reminisced about their beautiful, lifelong friendship, even though Alice never really aged throughout it, and she edited the Coyle's reel to protect the Landry family secret.

Del (Andie MacDowell) talked to Casey (Vaughan Murray) about still keeping Sam (Rob Stewart) at arm's length, and they brought her to 1999 for a final, beautiful moment with Colton. There, on one of his last days in 1999, they finally were able to say everything that had been left unsaid since his death.

Alice made plans to go to New York and "choose me for a bit," even as she finally admitted to her feelings for Max Goodwin and then shared a very teasey moment with adult Nick (Kerry James) — more on that below — who finally convinced Del to sell him Colton's boat.

In the last few minutes, Elliot had a revelation that his mom may still be alive. Alice gave Jacob "a family ring" that she owned — and had seen Casey wear — proving that Casey is Jacob and Abby's child.

Abby and Jacob got married at the pond surrounded by figments of Casey and friends from the past: Elijah, Susannah (Watson Rose) and Thomas (Kris Holden-Ried), Fern and Cliff, Evelyn, and Colton.

In the final moments, Kat and Alice meet at the entrance to the pond and reflect on the happy ending. Taking Alice's hand, Kat says, "You know what they say, 'Every ending is a new beginning,'" and into the pond they jump.

"It's not just Kat saying those lines, it's Chyler. And it's not just Alice saying those lines, it's Sadie," co-creator and co-showrunner Alexandra Clarke tells PEOPLE.

"We always knew that was going to be the ending," adds Heather Conkie, Clarke's mother and co-creator and co-showrunner.

Below, in an unfiltered, minimally edited (only for clarity) interview, the mother-daughter duo take PEOPLE through the final days on set, share their hopes for the characters' futures and answer a few lingering questions. And, yes, many tears were shed, including by this writer.

PEOPLE: I imagine that on some level you had an idea of where you wanted this story to wrap up. Do you feel you hit that vision, and what was the thing that you were, "This has to be the end"?

HEATHER CONKIE: The wedding and the figments and that last beautiful holding hands and jumping between Kat and Alice. We always knew, that was going to be the ending.

ALEXANDRA CLARKE: We always loved the idea of seeing the two women who started it all hold hands and take a leap together, only this time we're just not allowed to go with them. That was what we always wanted for the end, that they're going to keep going and having adventures and meeting new people and reuniting with the ones they've already met and have come to love. We just don't get to go with them now.

Obviously, some things will eventually come to pass that we won't see, including the wedding between Kat and Elliot, which presumably will happen. Tell me about the choice to make that final wedding Jacob's and not Kat and Elliot's.

CONKIE: There were several actually, wasn't there?

CLARKE: Yeah, there were. I think the first piece that we all agreed on was that the piece that we wanted to really see with Kat and Elliot was the proposal. We've been building to that all season with Elliot telling Del it has to be perfect. And then obviously he's deprived of that because of the time travel of it all and the quest to find his mom and then even further deprived of it because he is trapped back there and then he's injured. There were so many obstacles in the way of that quote, unquote "perfect proposal" that we had to see that. And to do two weddings in a finale would've deprived the specialness from both of them.

And we did need to see Jacob and Abby's reunion wedding to understand who Casey really was. That is such an important thread within our show as well, so it felt kind of perfect that the wedding at the end is certainly not the one you might expect, but it's the wedding of "The One," the boy who fell through time and saved their family. It had to be a happy ending for Jacob because that through-line of his disappearance and what happened to him and healing from that journey has been one of the beating hearts of the show.

CONKIE: And the other part that you were mentioning earlier, Alex, is that it's important to see that once again, all those feuding families are united. So the dreaded, terrible 1814 devil's great, great, great, great-granddaughter is marrying [a Landry]. So Jacob is now related to his tormentor.

He's going to take that portrait down, though. That's not staying up in Lingermore!

CLARKE: First order of business! But that was another one of the stories we really wanted to tell all the way through, the beautiful scene in the finale between Lewis and Jacob when they do kind of call a truce, Jacob appeals to him by saying, "There was a time when we were all friends, all these founding families." Luckily, we got to see that in the '70s and '80s this season, all of them sitting around the table at those kitchen parties. And in order to have a really full-circle moment in that finale, we needed to see the closure of Jacob being the one to bring all those families back together again. So yeah, at that pond—whether or not the Goodwins know why the wedding's at the pond is TBD—but having the Goodwins, the Augustines and the Landrys all there celebrating was pretty important to us.

How was having all of those guys back and on set all at the same time?

CONKIE: Well, there were some tricks done as well. But I remember John Calvert, our producer, saying, "You want them all back?"

CLARKE: It was so important for us to include the figments that best represent all the eras we've visited being there to witness this moment. So I will tell you—and I'm going to start to cry while I say it—it was a very emotional day. We always group our pond scenes together, and our last block, it was a two-day affair, and all those scenes were so racked with meaning and emotion, and I'm so proud of the actors for pushing through it.

One of the things that I hope fans do on maybe their second or their third rewatch of the finale is try and see it's not just Kat saying those lines, it's Chyler. And it's not just Alice saying those lines, it's Sadie. That was our last day at the pond, so those words that they say to one another on the rocks, it was supposed to be a bit meta and tongue-in-cheek. The idea of, well, it's the end of the story, and it is a happy ending.

You got me. Now I'm crying too.

CLARKE: Yeah, I don't know how they did it on the day because we were all very, very aware of the double meaning of those lines, and it took a while, but if you watch it, just know that that's Chyler saying those lines as much as it is Kat and similarly with Sadie. But also all the way through that finale, I think the beautiful scene with Fern and Kat, as Fern says goodbye to her in the '20s, again, that was very tough.

The way this cast connected both on- and off-screen is really unique.

CONKIE: They are incredible.

CLARKE: I know. Our executive, Kate Redinger, who's been our cheerleader since day one and continued to be all throughout our four seasons, on the very first season said, "This show is lightning in a bottle." And she was so right and it just kept showing itself to us that she was right. I will never forget the day we found Bianca, because we'd been on a months-long search. We went through, I can't even tell you how many rounds of auditions. And very similarly to Watson Rose, who plays Susanna, she was the last audition we saw and there she was. There was no question. And the minute we found her, we realized the season was going to work. I'm just so proud of her and the dedication and the talent and the world is falling in love with her and it's just so lovely to see. It's so well deserved.

CONKIE: Even with the audition, I ran out into the hall to the same John Calvert and said, "We found her, we found our Fern!" We all just watched her audition and said, "Oh my God." But we even then didn't have any idea of the scope of her talent. I mean, she is phenomenal.

Were you always going to make music such a key part of this story, or was that a result of all the musical talent amongst your cast?

CLARKE: It was always going to have some.

CONKIE: This was just a gift because they all brought this insane talent. The song between Elliot and Kat, "Silver Springs," was just unbelievable. And they'd get into a recording studio with me and just do it. Yeah, it was an incredible cast. It's once in a lifetime, I feel right now.

Was Casey always going to be Jacob's kid when you introduced them, or were you not sure yet?

CONKIE: We weren't sure. We went through a few iterations. But the minute we saw Holly, who plays Abby-

CLARKE: Mom, no, but we knew well before.

CONKIE: We knew before that, yeah, but when she auditioned, it became completely clear that that's exactly what we had to do because these two beautiful people with their bright, bright blue eyes and pale, pale skin.

CLARKE: Obviously, Holly was the only choice. The chemistry between her and Spencer is so brilliant and beautiful and innocent and just pure. But we were really worried that it was so obvious that those two would clearly make Casey right off the top, that people would just figure it out the minute they saw the two of them bump into one another in episode six, but it was great to drag it out and have that be the ultimate payoff.

Why did we never meet Nick's wife, Claire? Is there a mystery there?

CLARKE: It's funny because we love the trope of the person you'll never meet, the invisible character that people talk about, but you'll never meet. It's fun. It's the same with Brady's person. But then as we started withholding that and fans got wind of it … this whole beautiful theory developed about it being Alice and I think that's amazing. Yeah, I'm not going to lie, we're a little cheeky about it in the finale because that's a great theory.

CONKIE: At some point, that age difference doesn't make as much of a difference as it does when they first meet in their real time. We probably never would've done that, but just to give the music a little change when he said at the very end, "Oh, you may someday…"

CLARKE: I think the questions that we leave unanswered, the questions that we raise in the finale, are fun ones. We're trying to encourage the fans to write the next chapter themselves. Imagine where Kat and Alice jump to. Imagine why Thomas knows the house is blue. Imagine what Nick meant by that last little piece of saying, "Oh, I think you'll meet her one day." Those are fun questions to leave dangling because we know everyone has theories, and we love their theories, and we're so appreciative of those theories. We wanted to give the fans a moment to encourage them to be Kat and write their story of what might happen next. I hope that the questions that we did answer are the ones that fundamentally needed to be answered.

Don't forget whether or not Tessa is still alive somewhere!

CLARKE: Yeah, exactly.

You also had a whole generation of Landrys we never met.

CONKIE: That's so true. You've picked that out, didn't you? A lot of people didn't.

CLARKE: There are actually two generations, two eras. It's Colton's dad at that era. And then it's also the era that Tessa and Griffin arrive in, which is the generation after Elijah.

CONKIE: Right. Who were the Landrys who took her in?

If you could have gone on forever, you could have gotten there. In the meantime, people are going to write fan fiction. Are you going to go read it?

CONKIE: Absolutely.

CLARKE: It's been the best four years, well, six years really, from the start of all this that we've shared together and with Marly Reed, and it will be very hard to let it go completely. I don't think we ever will. And that's what's beautiful about the soundtrack. That is just such a lovely souvenir of the time we've all shared together. We made a very pointed effort to make the songs feel like they're from the show. We didn't want to glitz them up too much to take you back to those moments. If you don't have a pond, at least you have a song, and that song can take you back to a specific moment in the show.

Are you surprised by the huge reception to it? It's doing so well!

CONKIE: It knocked us backwards.

CLARKE: We were crying on the phone. It was amazing. And I will say there are still treats to come. Literally five minutes before we got on this call, we finalized the master for the last track, which will, of course, be "Already Home." And it is so beautiful, and I'm going to cry again. It's literally the perfect way to say goodbye.

Yeah, that song was the thing that started to get me when I watched the finale.

CLARKE: Yeah. Those two moments back-to-back, the proposal and then Del and Colton, their dance by the pond, are probably among my proudest moments.

CONKIE: Yeah, it's beautiful. Again, the cast, and Alex, I mean, you wrote that stuff. It gave me shivers.

CLARKE: I'm so proud of the performances because it was such a fine line in that scene for Del to not just immediately fall into his arms and go, "I miss you. I miss you. I should be with you." But instead to get the closure she never got of not only hearing him say, "I want you to be happy," but also for her to say to him, "I'm so sorry I didn't trust you." She was never able to say that to him because even at the time of his death, she was convinced he was having an affair, he'd lost all their money, she didn't know why, and she didn't learn the truth of that until 20 years later. And to be able to have her say those words to him was so important to us because it is why she's left Sam at arm's length for so long, and she doesn't even know it within herself. She even says to Casey, "I don't know why I can't commit. I don't know what's wrong with me." And it was that. She needed to say those words to Colton, and she needed to hear him say, "Be happy for me." And it was a beautiful scene. I'm very, very proud of it.

Were things that you had to have and took from set? I'm shocked I don't see them displayed behind you.

CONKIE: I have the table and chairs from the Landry kitchen. They're in my garage right now. They'll have a home at some point.

CLARKE: I have Elliot's fish lamp, and his really great leather armchair is in our living room, but also the little things. We have the almanac and the Alice in Wonderland books and all the beautiful props like that that became so important. I even have Cliff's love letter to Fern, all those little things that helped to make the show what it was. … As the sets were being dismantled, which was very hard, a lot of our crew and our cast were so completely invested in each one taking something home with them. To see them all want to take something home with them to remind them of this really beautiful, special time was very, very touching.

Can you share what some of the cast took?

CLARKE: Watson took a good amount of her wardrobe, which was so perfect.

CONKIE: Jefferson took the sheepskin coat that he was always wearing.

CLARKE: Oh, I have Colton's infamous sweater! … I know Sadie took Colton's guitar, which is so lovely, and she has it hanging in her living room, I think. Chyler took the "My Catherine" portrait. Oh, and Bianca has some of the jewelry. She has the emerald ring and the key bracelet.

Are there any last Easter eggs in the finale you think people might miss?

One of the Easter eggs in the finale is that Abby is wearing the emerald ring on her wedding day as a piece from her family. Obviously, because Fern gave that back to Grayson when she broke off the engagement, and he kept it, and it went through their family, and that's what a family heirloom is.

Before we wrap up, do you have any parting messages for the fans?

CONKIE: Well, I don't think we could have done the show without them. Their instant response right from the get-go was a huge surprise because we went up until that first time it went on the air, I kept even asking my husband, "Do you think it's okay?" … I think that they need to know how much they mean to us and how much they possibly changed. Who knew if we'd get four seasons? It was four wonderful seasons, and I'm not sure we would've gotten that without them.

CLARKE: I hope we've done them justice in this finale. They were certainly first and foremost in our minds as we were trying to end this show. It's been such a gift to read all their messages that they send me of what the show means to them, especially in the last couple of weeks as we've been wrapping up, I've been getting a lot of really lovely DMs just talking about how the show has helped them, whether they were going through depression or had lost their own family member or were disconnected from their family or just feeling alone and the show becoming a bit of a haven for them. It's just meant the world to hear those stories. We read them all, and I'm so glad that the show has done that for people because it certainly did that for us as well. I mean, you're running a show, but life is also happening. Mom and I have had our own ups and downs in our personal lives as this show has been on the air, and the show has become a haven for us as well. And I'm just so proud and grateful that it has for a lot of the people watching as well. That's all we could have asked for.

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The Way Home can be streamed on Hallmark+.

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